Surfboard x86

[alas]

thanks, it's nice to know that. Unfortunately I don't have any other choice left for monitors. Don't you find it strange, that the people at x86core were not aware of this, since the surfboard, I think, could frequently be plugged using a 15 pin cable to a vga monitor? Na, again something more to learn at my side, probably. thanks again for the comment, it makes sense to me too now.

[pskin]

alas,
You mentioned using puppy 4.31 edubook edition and having trouble
compiling the rtl8188su driver from deviceonchip.

In case you want to try, I found that the version of the driver
at the link below compiled without any problems (on an edubook
running pup-431 edubook edition).
However, I do not actually own that adapter, so I have no way
of knowing whether the driver loads and works properly, and would be
interested in hearing about it.

http://csiuo.com/drupal/content/install ... ubuntu-910

-pskin

[alas]

pskin,

thanks for the link, I am not at my surfboard now, but will give it a try and report back on this forum soon.

I have seen on deviceonchip.com that you have a patch for puppy 4.31 in order to add modules (your 14MB file); I would very much like to test it on my gecko edubook and on the surfboard since I am using puppy 4.31 on both of them.

I have had no luck with xorg resolution on the surfboard, so your patch could maybe solve some of my issues.

many thanks, and merry Xmas.

alas

[pskin]

alas,
Merry Christmas to you too.
I am looking for a place to upload. Several I looked at are not suitable
since there are lots of ads/surveys to view before downloading.
I will try to email you the xdelta3 patch of the main pup431.sfs file,
since that is smaller (7.7 MB) and all of the updates are in that
(No changes to kernel or initrd.)

-pskin

[ttuuxxx]

alas,
Merry Christmas to you too.
I am looking for a place to upload. Several I looked at are not suitable
since there are lots of ads/surveys to view before downloading.
I will try to email you the xdelta3 patch of the main pup431.sfs file,
since that is smaller (7.7 MB) and all of the updates are in that
(No changes to kernel or initrd.)

-pskin

If you send me a link via pm I'll upload it to a server, same goes with anyone else, Just make sure you tell me its for the surfboard,
I'm also been building/updating 4.3.2 http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=60026
Once I get the few bugs out of it, I'll rebuild it with the vortex kernel Barry compiled for the edubook. That should work well with the Surfboard also.
ttuuxxx

[Flash]

Pskin, how big is the file? If it's not too big, the forum should be able to host it. If not, maybe one of the hosts in this thread will work for you.

[nooby]

Interesting that it can manage with only 0.5W that is low indeed. I guess the sound of the fan is making you mad then. Needs a big fan to get all that heat out from the keyboard.

Keep us posted on how you succeed for find a puppy that works on it to your satisfaction, such is always welcomed to others that buy the same thing and look in vain on other forum and then see a Puppy that works that would be cool.

I love computers that are very silent and this one should be dead silent I guess.

[ttuuxxx]

Interesting that it can manage with only 0.5W that is low indeed. I guess the sound of the fan is making you mad then. Needs a big fan to get all that heat out from the keyboard.

Keep us posted on how you succeed for find a puppy that works on it to your satisfaction, such is always welcomed to others that buy the same thing and look in vain on other forum and then see a Puppy that works that would be cool.

I love computers that are very silent and this one should be dead silent I guess.

Its 100% silent, no fans at all, plus the way the surfboard is made, it has a lot of space inside the keyboard case so it gets proper air circulation.
ttuuxxx

[nooby]

Very cool that it needs no fan at all. My Acer D250 start the fan now and then but is rather silent the most silent computer I have but the newly bought cheaper Acer D255 is terrible in that the fan is running often and is whining a lot. Annoying so I envy you indeed.

So now you only need to find all the drivers then to get something going that is hopefully will be a think one can have fun with. Wish they sold such in Sweden- I would buy one instantly.

Keep us posted how it goes to get everything working.

[ttuuxxx]

Very cool that it needs no fan at all. My Acer D250 start the fan now and then but is rather silent the most silent computer I have but the newly bought cheaper Acer D255 is terrible in that the fan is running often and is whining a lot. Annoying so I envy you indeed.

So now you only need to find all the drivers then to get something going that is hopefully will be a think one can have fun with. Wish they sold such in Sweden- I would buy one instantly.

Keep us posted how it goes to get everything working.

Hi nooby they sell them everywhere Basically you buy it online and they ship anywhere in the world, I had it shipped to Australia for $174 USD or $196AUD including shipping and with the video out option included, so that I can connect it to a tv .
ttuuxxx

[nooby]

http://www.norhtec.com/products/surfboard/

The Gecko Surfboard is one of the easiest, most energy efficient and least expensive platforms to get on the web.

is this the same gear?

Features & specifications:

* 1 Ghz Xcore86 x586 Device on Chip
* 512 MB DDR RAM
* 1 RS232
* 1 VGA output
* Integrated 1280 x 1024 with 128 MB dedicated video RAM
* 1 TV / Composite video out (Optional)
* 2 x SDs, 2 x USB 2.0
* 1 x SATA (Internal)
* Hi Definition Audio - Audio in and out
* Optional WiFi and / or 3G module
* Tiny footprint
* No cooling fan or moving parts
* Regular expansion ports - USB/Serial/LAN etc.

That one is 5 Watts not 0.5 Watt.

They can be bought with linux on it. Would that not allow you to make use of those drivers?

[bigpup]

About the video resolution settings.
From the specs;
Integrated 1280 x 1024 with 128 MB dedicated video RAM.
Could be why can not get above 1280?

I remember this, but I think it was called a Commador 64.
What was old is now new.

[ttuuxxx]

Hi nooby I've had puppy running on it, just a regular version, but I wasn't impressed with the speed, probably because it was just a regular version and not a Vortex kernel and extra drivers, It was about a billion times easier than a olpc xo. But like I mentioned earlier its on my todo's list once I get series 4 updated. Then I'll strip it down a bit and build a release, probably with different browser to do testing on.
ttuuxxx

[ttuuxxx]

About the video resolution settings.
From the specs;
Integrated 1280 x 1024 with 128 MB dedicated video RAM.
Could be why can not get above 1280?

I remember this, but I think it was called a Commador 64.
What was old is now new.

Yes thats 100% why I purchased one, it reminded me of the Commodore 64, which I still have one And after I bought the surfboard Commodore actually brought back the 64, but now it looks the same but is pc compatible and they also have a new Amiga http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx
ttuuxxx

[alas]

@pskin: again, thank you very much for the link to the driver for the in-built wifi, but I can't get it compiled on the surfboard (I am using puppy 4.31 BK special gecko edition with the dev file for compilation). I have the opportunity to get another monitor, and now resolution is no more an issue. Nevertheless, looking for your xdelta file.

I am the owner of a gecko edubook and a surfboard, and so far, my opinion is very moderate about both of the (quiet similar) devices. Puppy is one of the best os running on both of them, which is a good point for Puppy, but a bad one for other linux os's. Such a project should push far more up the nix philosophy, and provide services and applications/drivers which are easy to compile/implement in every linux. This is not the case. Even more, deviceonchip.com makes its own ubuntu version in order to deserve the linux community which is, in my opinion, the wrong way to deal with the community (example: they made a ubuntu version with all drivers for the gecko edubook, but won't provide it as an *.iso file, instead, they use an old compression tool which requires a soft for win$ in order to be uncompressed. Take a look at their discussion forum, a lot of users are requesting an iso, but they won't provide it. Very uncommon and strange).

Besides, the surfboard, as the name said, should enable you to surf, so among other things to be able to look at your favorite video on youtube. It won't happen. It remains, like the gecko edubook, very slow, and unstable while managing flash contents.

To a point, the gecko edubook and the surfboard are promising more than they can deserve, and this is a very bad news. Now, regarding basic tasks, you can do a lot with them, and this is the good news. But I remain with the ambivalent feeling that I maybe have given too much away regarding what I have got.

Not a troll, just an opinion from a day-to-day 6 month use of the gecko and the surfboard. Frankly, if I was not so linked to support the global ecological trend, I won't have bought such a hardware.

alas

[Aitch]

ttuuxxx/alas

Another Edubook user here

I've found Lupu 5.1.1 to work 'out of the box' after my XP Fundamentals crashed and remains unbootable and unrepairable, after installing 'an incompatible' XP software - which I can't uninstall, as it won't even go into safe mode/last known good, and I don't have a Fundamentals CD to re-install....

I believe the APM issue was dealt with by Barry

There were versions of 4.3.1/2 modified for the Edubook, but I couldn't get either to run....

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=50208 (XDelta3 here!)

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01395

Apparently Wary 093 runs

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=01901

I believe there's an RDC driver for the video, and is the same in the Surfboard

BIOS updates apparently solve the APM/shutdown problem, too, but I haven't done mine yet....

The SD Card is a major bottleneck, check which class it is. They're probably using a class 2-4 card, so you can get more speed/video playback by just upping to a class 6 to 10 card. - a real SSD would improve it loads, but I can't afford one yet awhile

If you get 214X running on it ttuuxxx, let me know...

EDIT: Sorry for being late to the party, seems I may have covered some previously posted stuff, as I only saw P1

Aitch

[pskin]

alas,
I was able to compile that module on the edubook, and I noticed that
a difference in our setups is that I have the
kernel_src-2.6.30.5.sfs4.sfs
as well as
devx_431.sfs
mounted. I seem to remember having difficulty compiling modules without the kernel source sfs.

I have also been puzzled why norhtec (deviceonchip) puts their stuff in strange formats (and also the documentation in the linux drivers as .doc). One reason may be that they do not create the drivers/docs themselves, but get it from the actual manufacturers of the hardware RDC, DMP etc.

The site deviceonchip.com seems not to be too lively at the moment. I think that would be the best place to post my new iso (since they posted the original pup-431-edubook.iso for download), but the admins there do not seem to have seen my post yet.

I have had my edubook since November 2009. When I got it, it did not have linux installed as advertised, and I tried various distributions,
some of which worked at least partly, such as grml, puppy 4.3.1
and some which needed a special kernel, like WattOS (ubuntu 9.04).
I think Kevin Bowers was also doing a lot of experiments and testing
at the time, and I got some clues from some of his posts.
In the end I was happy to get sound, network and wifi working on both
pup-431 and wattOS RC1. and so I made the pup-4.3.1-edubook.iso.
At this time, the edubook still had no xorg driver and also no apm
of any kind.
Later the apm bios was made available on deviceonchip.com
and so was the rdc X driver. These additions allowed clean shutdown
on power-off and also to use an external monitor connected to the external vga output.
To me these were significant improvements, since I could now use my edubook, which I mainly use for travel, for presentations. I have found the small size and absence of power brick to be great advantages for using the edubook as a travel computer, and the fact that it is running linux suits my needs well. The main drawback is the inability to use skype for video-conferencing, and I doubt that this can be overcome.

I thought others might like the enhanced pup-431, so I have made the new patch. If it works on surfboard, so much the better. I tried to include the rtl8188su wireless module which I heard was now needed for the adapter being distributed with some units.

It would also be easy just to
a) distribute the new compiled modules and modified files; or
b) distribute an xdelta3 patch of the main pup-431.sfs file
(all of the changes occur there)
and these would be smaller, but it would be nice if someone (deviceonchip.com?)
could patch the iso and host the new iso.

ttuuxxx has kindly offered to post my xdelta3 patch to a server, and it
is easy to create the new iso from this patch and a copy of the old iso.

Here is part of the README
-------------------------------
The file pup-431-edubook_update.delta an xdelta3 patch for the file
pup-431-edubook.iso

By applying this patch to the existing pup-431-edubook.iso file a new
pup-431-edubook-dec2010.iso file will be created, with the following modifications.


CHANGES
-------
Wireless:
2) Updated kernel module ralink rt3070sta driver version 2.1.2.0 for the wireless card (usbID3070).
This was compiled from Ralink source DPO_RT3070_LinuxSTA_V2.3.0.4_20100604
The binary module rt3070sta.ko can be found in the additions folder in the
top level of the iso.


3) Installed kernel module 8172u wireless driver from Realtek for the Realtek 8188
wireless cards, compiled from Realtek source
rtl8712_8188_8191_8192SU_usb_linux_v2.6.0006.20100202
The binary module 8172u.ko can be found in the additions folder in the
top level of the iso.
(This module has not been tested.)


X:
4) Installed RDC xorg driver rdc_drv.so and configured X to use it at 1024x600(depth 16).
The binary driver can be found in the additions folder in the
top level of the iso.
Also, the RDC utility for switching to an external display can be found in /root
of the Puppy system and also in the additions folder in the top level of the iso.

modprobe.conf:
5) modprobe.conf has been edited to allow the edubook to power off on shutdown.
A copy of the new modprobe.conf is in the additions folder in the top level of the iso.

Best regards,
-pskin

[alas]

pskin: thanks a lot for your extensive post. I have myself solved the wireless problem with the gecko edubook by using a usb-wifi stick. I did the same for the surfboard, but I shall try to recompile the driver for the native usb module with the kernel headers you suggested.

X: I compiled the rdc driver provided on deviceonchip, and I was able to make it work with an external monitor. Now, and like you, I'd like to use my edubook on travel for presentations, but I was unable to get a display on my optoma beamer, so I gave up.

My gecko edubook, as my surfboard, do not shutdown properly, but it is a known issue, and I am waiting for you to find a server in order to save your patch which everyone can then use. This said, this is very sad that your post from early December at deviceonchip did not stimulate their admins to give you a space on their server. But end with this.

kind regards
al

[ttuuxxx]

Here's pskin xdelta patch
http://www.smokey01.com/ttuuxxx/NorhTec ... update.tgz
ttuuxxx

[pskin]

ttuuxx,
I'm much obliged to you. Also, thanks in advance to everyone
who tests the iso. I'll do my best to fix any problems which come up, of course.

Thanks to Flash and others who made helpful suggestions about upload sites.
Regards,
-pskin